Analytics Ninja Dies from Data Overload

Although this subject has been breached in multiple blog posts, articles, and tweets, it is worth re-emphasizing. Web analytics has completely changed marketing as we know it (or in my case, as I have seen it on Mad Men and read about in Scientific Advertising). Whereas, previously advertisers struggled to gather what little information they could muster through surveys, check boxes, or even “portable people meters”, web analytics provides information overload.

Web Analytics Has Changed Marketing as We Know It

Savvy marketers can track nearly anything. Although attribution remains a problem, web analysts can identify the number of users who converted from India at 3:00 on Wednesday who had previously visited the site from an email campaign and most recently landed on a product landing page after searching for the term “portable people meters” on Bing.

But really, who gives a crap?

Too often marketers and clients get wrapped up in what web analytics allows us to measure rather than identifying the business objectives that are the most important to track. Web analtyics has opened up a whole new world of tools (see box below) for us to use but we need to determine which projects are the most important.

Account managers should obtain a list of business objectives from a client before providing any information on what is possible to measure or scenarios like this could occur: “You say you can provide a trend of average time of site from visitors searching for our brand terms? I definitely need that.”

For a CMO, who probably knows less than your average 6th grader about web analytics, it is important to provide information that directly impacts revenue and ROI. Look at bounce rates of top landing pages and pay attention to the conversion funnel. Spend less time building out custom reports and more time diagnosing problems.